Is it any wonder that they don't get it? In case you missed it, Washington Week had a special edition tonight where they ostensibly took on the question, "Is our political system broken?" The only problem was that they kept looking at it through their narrow prism of "left" and "right".

For about 20 minutes (with the rest of the time devoted to corporate sponsors), we had the pleasure of listening to James Bennet, the new editor of The Atlantic, Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, and Priscilla Painton, executive editor of Time Magazine while they mused over the Big Ideas of Democracy. (Yes, de Tocqueville was mentioned not once but twice. One cannot accuse these mighty journalists of not being learned.)

We learned that the blogosphere is responsible for the trivializing of American politics. We learned that politicians are simply too hateful. We learned that the American people are just too apathetic. We learned just how bad talk radio is.

There was casual mention of cable news programs, let's be fair. But that was 20 years ago -- nothing that is relevant today. And certainly not at all relevant to High Minded shows like Washington Week.

And yet, and yet....

...Everything came down to the "right" and the "left." Apparently the politicians and the Fourth Estate are all centrists, but the blogosphere is forcing acrimony from -- yes, you guessed it -- the "right" and the "left."

That left me wondering: Am I on the right or on the left? After all, right and left seem to define politics, at least according to these "experts." And as a blogger, well, I must be the worst of the worst -- an extremist!

I'm against the war on Iraq. That puts me on the left. But I was for the war on Afghanistan. Does that put me on the right? However, I'm for rebuilding Afghanistan and building its economy so that the Taliban has little to stand on.

I'm for the reduction of some taxes, so that puts me on the right. But I believe the poor should be given the greatest tax breaks, which puts me on the left. I believe in encouraging small businesses, which puts me on the right, but I believe small business is helped by things like national healthcare (because healthy workers are in business' self-interest), which puts me on the left, and a balanced budget, which puts me on the right (except for those "rightists" who think pork is a holy mission from God).

I'm for improved education by means of giving more independence to schools, which puts me on the right. But I don't think you can starve schools into improvement, which puts me on the left.

I strongly believe in the Constitution, which makes me an American. I believe the Constitution includes the entire Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment (left) and Second Amendment (right). I believe a woman is not a breeder slave of the State, which puts me way way on the left, apparently, if I'm to listen to the pundits. And I believe it's nobody's business -- especially not the Government's -- what happens in a private home (right), including the bedroom (left).

I believe George W. Bush is probably the worst president this country has ever had (left), and I believe that many, if not most, of the Congressional Democrats aren't worth a bucket of spit (right). (Sorry for the vividness there, but the way they blather, it's the image I get.)

I despise the arrogant blindness of the mainstream media (left and right) -- perhaps that's why I'm labeled by them as being the primary cause of the demise of American politics.

So what is it, Gwen? Am I on the "right" or on the "left" when I believe the conservatives aren't conservative enough and the liberals aren't liberal enough, while believing that there is indeed way too much conflict and strife in Washington?

Maybe the problem is that we keep trying to define our politics along a binary axis -- as if everyone can be plotted along a yardstick, all in line, all in a row, easy to parse, easy to define. Maybe the problem, Gwen, is that even the television news programs with the most promise fall on such easy paradigms.

Needless to say, this week's show -- set as it was at the Aspen Ideas Festival -- was ironically placed, as the ideas were few.

And just like with the prefabricated political "debates" we see every election season, the best questions came not from the reporters but from the audience (who all were presumably just a bunch of radicals to be pegged somewhere along that political yardstick).

The big thing not mentioned in all this brief spectacle? Corporate influence on politics. That's right, the 800 pound gorilla was not mentioned at all. Nary a mention of K Street lobbying dominating legislative efforts (including actually writing the bills our representatives "vote" on). Not a word about how big money distorts political campaigns. Of course, being a blogger, I suppose I'm the cause of the "trivializing of politics" (or some such absurd claim), so let the "experts" from Washington pass judgment.

I've been a big fan of Gwen and Washington Week, but this week they proved just how out of touch they really are. It was all rather disappointing.

Yes, Gwen, our political system is broken. Maybe if you guys listened instead of talked, you might have learned something. Of course, being from television, the idea of listening to the opinions of the citizens whom Politics ostensibly serves is too much of a radical idea. Politics was just so much better when We the People could only bitch over the newspaper or shout at the television. This blogging business has gotta go.

The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party said on its Web site it would be officially registered Wednesday, proclaiming: "We are going to shake The Hague awake!"

The party said it wanted to cut the legal age for sexual relations to 12 and eventually scrap the limit altogether.
Just think of all those little boys and girls who are missing out on the joy of having a grown-up sweating on them and fondling them and ejaculating on and in them.

"A ban just makes children curious," Ad van den Berg, one of the party's founders, told the Algemeen Dagblad (AD) newspaper.Talk about rationalization!

Sex with animals should be allowed although abuse of animals should remain illegal, the NVD said.
I think this should be called "The Penis is Ruler of All It Surveys" Party. If It is aroused, all must bow down. Children and sheep must be made available to receive ejaculate!

Okay, seriously now...

Mothers, fathers, I ask you: Is your kindergartner really mature enough to make wise choices about sexual relations? What's more, how many times has your toddler expressed sexual fantasies involving grown men? How many 4th grade city government classes involve discussions railing against the laws that prevent men from molesting them?

The Netherlands, which already has liberal policies on soft drugs, prostitution and gay marriage, was shocked by the plan.Yes. Because when it comes to drugs, prostitution and marriage between adults, they are old enough to make decisions for themselves.

But these pedophiles want to open up children's bedrooms to their lustful actions. Child molestation is a crime even prison convicts notoriously don't forgive.

Make no mistake: Sexual molestation does some serious damage to a child. It's a total mind-fuck, and few people are able to leave the experience totally behind them.

Uruzgan was one of three southern provinces where U.S. military spokesman Col. Tom Collins said the insurgents have bolstered their numbers.

"We know for a fact that in recent weeks they have grown in strength and influence in some parts of Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan," he told a news conference in Kabul. "There is a hard-core group of Taliban fighters, certainly numbering in the hundreds."

He said the militants are recruiting poor villagers.

"They prey upon people who don't have a lot of hope. They recruit people to join their cause," he said. "These people may not believe much in the cause, but they need a job."Of course, we couldn't be bothered with actually helping Afghanistan grow an economy (aside from opium) or actually establish law and order.

"Taliban Schmaliban! Saddam is thumbing is nose at us! Let's fix the facts and go get him!"

And so we spend millions of dollars a minute dealing with the civil war we unleashed in Iraq, while the real terrorists who planned 9/11 get stronger in Afghanistan.

In making this choice, Bush may have been "the decider," but it sure doesn't seem to have been all that smart now.

So far, the outcry has been mostly in tech circles and non-English sites. On Manal and Alaa's bucket, Manal writes:
Alaa and the rest of the group that was kidnapped yesterday, will be detained for 15 days. They didnt go directly to the prison as we thought, but spent the night at the Khalifa's police station and are supposed to be transferred to the prisons now. The 3 women will go to El Qanater prison, as Tora prison where the rest of the 40 detainees are held has no section for women, and the men are supposed to join the rest and go to Tora prison, but some think that they will also taken to El Qanater prison (which has sections for both men and women).

They renewed 15 more days to the detainees of 24th of April, today. They are not releasing them anytime soon.From prison, Alaa writes:
Today it hit me, I am really in prison. I'm not sure how I feel. I thought I was OK but I took forever to wake up. The way fellow prisoners look at me tells me I do not feel well but I can't really feel it.

I'd say prison is not like I expected, but I had no expectations. No images, not even fears, nothing. Guess it will take time. I expect to spend no less than a month here. I'm sure that's enough time to see all the ugly sides of prison, to be genuinely depressed....

...Still I am writing this in English to prevent my cellmates from reading over my shoulders, not that I am sure this will work. They are all educated and some are very knowledgeable, in the span of two days we discussed everything, from Egyptology to biology to economics, lots of politics tab3an. I have to defend Kefaya and all the different movements, I have to explain about the judges and I have to explain why I'm here, why it's worth it, and to be frank I've no idea why. It isn't worth being away from Manal for three days let alone 30 (mashy ya masr) but I can't really say that, can I ?I know it's not easy to get worked up over yet another blogger who's been arrested by an oppressive regime. But Egypt is supposedly an ally, supposedly a democracy, right?

I wonder where the self-labeled "pro-life" folks are on this one -- especially since politically they're centered in the GOP, the party that has fought for decades against any sort of universal healthcare.

Among 33 industrialized nations, the United States is tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with a death rate of nearly 5 per 1,000 babies, according to a new report. Latvia's rate is 6 per 1,000.

"We are the wealthiest country in the world, but there are still pockets of our population who are not getting the health care they need," said Mary Beth Powers, a reproductive health adviser for the U.S.-based Save the Children, which compiled the rankings based on health data from countries and agencies worldwide.

The U.S. ranking is driven partly by racial and income health care disparities. Among U.S. blacks, there are 9 deaths per 1,000 live births, closer to rates in developing nations than to those in the industrialized world.

Oh. Maybe that explains it?

The Republicans have been big on fomenting the attitude that if people are down and out, then somehow they just deserve it. Anyone who's poor just doesn't work hard enough, is just too damned lazy, right? That's why they oppose the kinds of Christian acts I learned in Sunday school, like aid for the poor. We don't want to coddle "those people"!

And so, following the logic of the GOP -- the party of forced pregnancy in the name of "pro-life" -- these babies who are dying just have it coming. They die because they deserve it. Right?

Of course, I don't expect much of anything on this from the forced-pregnancy advocates on this one, except perhaps to respond to criticism like this. After all, in all their self-proclaimed advocacy for "babies," they really don't show much interest in babies themselves, only in embryos and fetuses and even unfertilized ova. That and the health of the insurance companies and pharmaceutical conglomerates (who are profiting quite well, thank you).

Still, it's the impoverished nations that feel the full brunt of infant mortality, since they account for 99 percent of the 4 million annual deaths of babies in their first month. Only about 16,000 of those are in the United States, according to Save the Children.

The highest rates globally were in Africa and South Asia. With a newborn death rate of 65 out of 1,000 live births, Liberia ranked the worst.

Ah, there's another reason for the right wing not to give a crap: this is "other people's problems." While we have the Global Gag Rule in place in order to appease the oh-so-ironically-labeled "pro-life" folks with an inside track to our rulers, the death of real, actual, breathing, physically autonomous babies -- the kind that are born, the kind that are persons, the kind that are here, now -- is not a matter of import to them.

In past reports by Save the Children â€” released ahead of Mother's Day â€” U.S. mothers' well-being has consistently ranked far ahead of those in developing countries but poorly among industrialized nations. This year the United States tied for last place with the United Kingdom on indicators including mortality risks and contraception use.

More unimportant news to the radical right politicians, who seem to be in an all-out foot race to outdo each other with misogynist laws that force pregnancy on women, no matter what. No, to them, what matters most is what is inside women's wombs -- not the women, and not babies.

And thus the ongoing tragedy of declining healthcare in this country continues, while any and all attempts to change that are met by the Republicans with intransigence, denial, outright hostility, lies, political scapegoatism -- remember how "welfare mothers" were supposedly destroying America? -- and healthy doses of self-righteousness.

And that's why, year after year, we can expect more Save the Children reports like this one. I don't know if the Democrats have any real answers -- the best Democratic speech I've ever heard on it was delivered by the fictional Matt Santos from The West Wing -- but we can be pretty damned sure that the Republicans will do nothing about it.